Hundreds of people gathered Sunday evening at the Mont des Arts in Brussels, in support of Olivier Vandecasteele, this humanitarian worker detained for more than a year in Iran.
“He has been detained for no good reason for a year“, recalls the brother-in-law of Olivier Vandecasteele, present at the Brussels vigil. “368 days already that he counts the minutes and the days without seeing anyone. It took us a long time to realize that he was not an ordinary prisoner but an innocent hostage in a dirty blackmail. Belgium wanted to solve this situation in a legal way, by a text which was voted in the parliament, but the Iranian opposition has been putting a spoke in the wheels in all possible ways for six months“, he adds.
Until the Constitutional Court rules on March 8, the Belgian government can do nothing, continues the brother-in-law of Olivier Vandecasteele. “If there were other ways to pressure Iran, the government would have used them long ago. It has now been five weeks since the family has had any news. The question is in what physical and mental state we will recover him, and if he will ever recover.”he says again.
Finally, the humanitarian worker’s family urges the political and judicial authorities to show the necessary courage to secure his release.
Support vigils are organized this Sunday in different places in Belgium as well as in Lyon, where Olivier Vandecasteele worked.